


he dreams he's awake

by andreaphobia



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Death, Desire, Digging, Dreams, Horror, M/M, Metaphors, Not for the squeamish, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:34:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andreaphobia/pseuds/andreaphobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Watanuki is not the only one who dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he dreams he's awake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nebulia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulia/gifts).



> Written for the 2012 xxxHolic Valentine's day exchange. Originally archived on LJ.
> 
> Contains grotesque imagery.

_dream the first:  
_ a child’s dream

you are digging a hole.

you are digging a hole with your bare hands, at the base of a bush.

down on your knees like this, grimy hands clasped as if in prayer, you’re a supplicant before blood-red hydrangeas.

you are looking for something. you feel as though you have been searching for it all your life. and so, you dig. for some reason you think you might find it tangled round the roots, but at the moment you’re having trouble remembering what it looks like.

after a while, it starts to rain. the dirt turns to mud under your hands and pools together, filling the hole you’ve dug with silt and erasing all the progress of the last hour. still, you thrust your hands into the muddy water, feeling around the bottom of the hole, reaching as deep as you can go. slowly, you pull out a long, white bone... and then another. they’re human bones—see, this is a femur in miniature; that a polished finger-joint. you don’t know how you never noticed it before, but the branches of the bush are bone-white, the trunk of it a twisted web of cartilage. blood pours from the blossoms of the hydrangea, caking the ground, the stench of it is absolutely foul and you feel bile rising in your throat; you hunch over, heaving, your guts threatening to turn themselves inside-out—

you wake up, hyperventilating and covered in sweat, tangled in your sheets. it is a midsummer night. the dry heat seals your shirt to your chest like a canvas, and outside, the cicadas are weeping in the trees. you thrust off the futon’s coverlet and pace about your room in frustration. you are not crazy. it’s just that—

at times, you have these _dreams_.

it’s nearly light out before you finally manage to toss and turn yourself back into a restless sleep.

the next day, at school, you meet watanuki.

 

 

 

_dream the second:  
_ a dream of drowning

you are digging a hole.

this hole will be your grave, and you will lie in it.

you dig a pit, three by seven and six feet deep, and crawl inside, back to the ground, folding your arms over your chest. someone, far above, in the world of the living, starts to heap dirt upon you. as you watch, the light at the very top of the hole is sliced away in twisted ribbons, until finally it winks out.

down here, it’s quiet: dark, silent, and complete. you think... perhaps... you could sleep here at last. forever, if you just so happened to be that lucky.

but the weight of the ground above you, flattening you, continues to grow, relentlessly. at some point you hear the _‘crack’_ of your bones shattering from it—like the sound of a tree splintering, crumbling to the ground—and find that you are no longer able to move.

soon, under a thousand pounds of soil, filling your nose and mouth and lungs, crushing your ribs and suffocating you, you begin to panic. this isn’t really what you wanted, is it? you’re too young to die (a traitor’s voice in your head says _he’s too young to_ not _die_ ) and you have everything left in the world to do for him—

but you’ve made your choice, and in this life there are no second chances. it is already too late. your windpipe is filled with gravel, worms are burrowing through your flesh, under your skin, you can feel them moving, the loathsome sensation of thousands of wriggling maggots filling every cavity of your body, and all the words you wanted to say, _i wanted you, you’re beautiful, open your arms to me_ , are silenced. if you die in a dream, you wonder, dizzily, do you die in real life?

you are still wondering this when you come awake, watanuki’s name on your lips and a sticky mess in your shorts. your hand hurts, so you look at it, only to discover that you have bitten down on your knuckles so hard that they are bleeding.

how embarrassing. you wipe your hand off on your shirt, and roll over, curling up tight. in the morning, it will be as though it never happened.

(for these little mercies, you are grateful.)

 

 

 

_dream the third:  
_ a butterfly’s dream

you are digging a hole.

you are dreaming. you know you are dreaming because it was your grandfather that told you to dig this hole, and your grandfather’s long dead.

but still, you dig.

you dig until the flesh sloughs off of your hands like you’re a snake shedding skin, only it’s not just skin that comes off, it’s muscle and meat and tendons and rubbery veins, all falling away like so much debris.

you dig until finally you discover something: a bulbous, pulsating, faintly-glowing thing, as big as a human body. a pale membrane is stretched over it, all the way around; waxy, faintly translucent, like human skin.

is this what you’ve been looking for? you wonder to yourself. you don’t know for sure. all you know how to do is dig. to move dirt from one place to another.

pointless, like everything else you do.

you shove skeletal fingers through the leathery cocoon, splitting it open layer by layer, with a dry, crackling sound. the light inside vanishes, extinguished like a candle being blown out. you draw your fingers back out, and, clinging to them, are strands of hair.

black hair—but no, it’s too long; it clings to your fingers, filmy and repulsive. the thing inside the cocoon folds back slimy, patterned wings to reveal a woman’s face, wide, round eyes blinking owlishly. it’s yuuko! the thing staring at you from inside cocoon is yuuko.

how odd that she should have been hiding here all this time.

_gestating._

it’s disappointing, in a way, but perhaps you can still make the most of this. if you brought her to him, maybe he would reward you, for your service. maybe he would even remember that you exist.

you are just thinking about how best to transport her, when you blink... and she’s gone.

you are lying on your futon, in the room next to watanuki’s, staring up at the still and silent ceiling fan.

another dream, you think to yourself, deflating. you raise your hand to scratch your face, and then pause, staring.

there is dirt under your fingernails.

 

 

 

_dream the fourth:  
_ a dream of death

you are digging a hole.

you are poised above a snowdrift, digging straight down, frantically. all around you, snow continues to fall. your hands are blue, frostbitten; shards of your fingernails have torn off, leaving the tips of your fingers raw and bloody, but you’re so cold that you can barely feel it. your face is numb, your breath a cloud of ice. it doesn’t matter, none of it matters.

all that matters is finding him.

why are you doing this? you ask yourself, as you struggle in the midst of a blizzard. you don't know the answer to that. perhaps it’s because... you are the only one who _can._ there is no one left by his side, no one that can help him. only you.

you’re the only one who’s left.

at last, your frozen fingers encounter something that isn’t more ice and snow—a hand! his hand. it does not move. you feel for a pulse, and find none.

still, you plant your feet wide and strain to drag him out: a limp, half-dead thing, a rag doll, a puppet with its strings cut. he isn’t breathing. for a moment, you panic—and then he gasps, chest spasming, water dribbling from his nose and mouth. you got to him in time, you weren’t too late. relief washes over you, head to toe, and you hold him, hold him to your chest for as long as he’ll allow it.

when he wraps arms back around you, it shocks you to the core. his face is white but his lips are soft and pink and his eyes are so, so bright; he kisses you on the mouth, his skin is so hot it burns you, so warm and _alive_ , he wants you, he wants this and you’re happier than you have ever been in your life, he is everything you want, more than you could ever dream of having, his neck, his collarbone, the breath of his mouth and the spaces between his ribs that you count with your fingertips, his heartbeat, his blood spilling over your hands—

from this, your final dream, you do not wake.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos appreciated!


End file.
